KERA-TV Channel 13 Dallas/Fort Worth Texas RCA TK-76 Pledge Night March 1977

In March of 1977, the RCA TK-76 portable camera was used during one night of KERA-TV's pledge drive. For live and videotape production, this PBS affiliate had only three GE PE-400 color cameras on huge pedestals plus a GE PE-240 and a GE PE-245 (4 channel vidicon color film chains). They had no portable video camera. There was interest in adding one to the station but the budget did not permit it at the time. Hence, any demonstration camera was welcomed. It was a big deal on TK-76 night! This camera was new to the DFW market and the decision to "try it out" was at the last minute (literally). The camera was "on loan" from RCA to a local post production house across town in Dallas but found it's way to KERA for this unannounced on-air use. This TK-76 was one of the early S/N's from RCA and had no genlock capability. The only way for the station to integrate this camera into the production switcher was to genlock the entire station sync generator to the video output connector on the back of the TK-76. Basically, the TK-76 video looped-through through the Grass Valley Group 950 sync gen. to the Sarkes-Tarzian production switcher. We had no timing capabilities with this camera. Furthermore, the camera was operating on it's own battery the entire time. As a testament to the TK-76 system stability performance, the Auction inserts were flawless and the genlock was stable throughout. Before auction start, we did wire up the GVG sync gen remote lock on/off switch to the MC operator that night who was Jackie Stophel (he ended up moving to CBS-H for the rest of his long broadcast career three years later.) This recording was made on an Ampex VR-1200 two-inch Quad videotape machine. www.dcvideo.com